The Cvetković–Maček Agreement ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, Sporazum Cvetković-Maček, Споразум Цветковић-Мачек), also known simply as the Sporazum in English-language histories,
was a political compromise on internal divisions in the
Kingdom of Yugoslavia
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a country in Southeast Europe, Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 until 1941. From 1918 to 1929, it was officially called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, but the term "Yugoslavia" () h ...
. It was settled on August 26, 1939, by
Yugoslav prime minister Dragiša Cvetković
Dragiša Cvetković ( sr-cyr, Драгиша Цветковић; 15 January 1893 – 18 February 1969) was a Yugoslav politician active in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. He served as the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia from 1939 to 1941 ...
(an ethnic
Serb
The Serbs ( sr-Cyr, Срби, Srbi, ) are a South Slavic ethnic group native to Southeastern Europe who share a common Serbian ancestry, culture, history, and language. They primarily live in Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia ...
) and by
Vladko Maček
Vladimir Maček (20 June 1879 – 15 May 1964) was a politician in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. As a leader of the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS) following the 1928 assassination of Stjepan Radić, Maček had been a leading Croatian political figure ...
(a
Croat
The Croats (; , ) are a South Slavs, South Slavic ethnic group native to Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and other neighboring countries in Central Europe, Central and Southeastern Europe who share a common Croatian Cultural heritage, ancest ...
politician) The agreement established the
Banovina of Croatia
The Banovina of Croatia or Banate of Croatia ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=, Banovina Hrvatska, Бановина Хрватска) was an administrative subdivision ( banovina) of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia between 1939 and 1941. It was formed by a m ...
, with boundaries drawn to include as many ethnic Croats as possible. This effectively created within
unitary Yugoslavia an
autonomous Croatian
sub-state, a demand of Croat politicians since the
1918 founding of the
Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a country in Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 until 1941. From 1918 to 1929, it was officially called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, but the term "Yugoslavia" () has been its colloq ...
(Yugoslavia). The Banovina later provided a model for eventual
post-war
A post-war or postwar period is the interval immediately following the end of a war. The term usually refers to a varying period of time after World War II, which ended in 1945. A post-war period can become an interwar period or interbellum, ...
constitutional arrangements in
Federal Yugoslavia (1943–1945).
Background
Administration in the 1920s & the Croatian Question
Yugoslavia effectively went through two iterations of internal administrative borders. In the
Vidovdan Constitution
The Vidovdan Constitution was the first constitution of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. It was approved by the Constitutional Assembly on 28 June 1921 despite the opposition boycotting the vote. The Constitution is named after the feast ...
of 28 June 1921, drawn up in large parts by
Nikola Pašić
Nikola Pašić ( sr-Cyrl, Никола Пашић, ; 18 December 1845 – 10 December 1926) was a Serbian and Yugoslav politician and diplomat. During his political career, which spanned almost five decades, he served five times as prime minis ...
and
Svetozar Pribićević
Svetozar Pribićević ( sr-Cyrl, Светозар Прибићевић}, ; 26 October 1875 – 15 September 1936) was a Croatian Serb politician in Austria-Hungary and later the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. He was one of the main proponents of Yugoslavi ...
, 33 administrative districts were established in what was then called the
Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a country in Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 until 1941. From 1918 to 1929, it was officially called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, but the term "Yugoslavia" () has been its colloq ...
. These were designed in a very deliberate way to maximize the political power and representation of the ethnic
Serb
The Serbs ( sr-Cyr, Срби, Srbi, ) are a South Slavic ethnic group native to Southeastern Europe who share a common Serbian ancestry, culture, history, and language. They primarily live in Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia ...
population, and an amendment to the Electoral Law in June 1922 even prescribed the use of pre-
First World War
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
population numbers, allowing Serbia to ignore its massive casualties during the war. Furthermore, the way that the constitution was passed by parliament had also caused some resentment, as the
Croatian Republican Peasant Party (HRSS), Croatia's largest regionalist party, had refused to vote, whereas the
Communist Party of Yugoslavia
The League of Communists of Yugoslavia, known until 1952 as the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, was the founding and ruling party of SFR Yugoslavia. It was formed in 1919 as the main communist opposition party in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats a ...
(KPJ) had been excluded. This had made it easy for Pašić's
People's Radical Party (NRS) and Pribićević's
Democratic Party (DS), both political parties that were most popular among ethnic Serbs, to fulfill their agenda.
Ultimately, the Vidovdan Constitution institutionalized Serbian hegemony in the new state, and its revision became a key goal for high-ranking opposition voices like HRSS leader
Stjepan Radić. Radić was shot by Serb deputy
Puniša Račić
Puniša Račić ( sr-cyr, Пуниша Рачић; 12 July 1886 – 16 October 1944) was a Montenegrin Serb, Serb leader and People's Radical Party (NRS) politician. He assassinated Croatian Peasant Party (HSS) representatives Pavle Radić and Đ ...
in parliament in 1928, and died two months later. He became a martyr for the anti-Vidovdan cause, and the little remaining Croat faith in the constitution shattered. The HRSS started once again boycotting parliament, and the Vidovdan Constitution became untenable.
Starting as early as 1922, the issue of the value and preferred method of appeasement towards the unwilling Croatian partner became the local version of the ''
Croatian Question
The Croatian question () refers to a political, cultural, social and economical status of Croats in Austria-Hungary, Kingdom of Yugoslavia, SFR Yugoslavia and post-Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The first steps towards Croat home rule were made ...
'' among the Serbian elite. Even 'amputation', i.e. Croatian independence to the benefit of the whole system, was considered on multiple occasions. Usually, the Serbian vision of amputation included the annexation of regions that were ethnically mixed between Croats and Serbs by Serbia, rather than Croatia. This would have effectively created a "
Great Serbia" rather than a union of South Slavs. From the Croatian viewpoint, the ''Croatian Question'' was less focussed on the appeasement of Yugoslavia as a greater whole, but on the separation of Croatia from any sort of influence from Belgrade. Stjepan Radić became the early face of the Croatian separatist movement. He oscillated between favoring outright independence or a confederate model of government with three constitutionally recognized peoples (Slovenes, Croats, Serbs) that were to form independent and sovereign nation states before then voluntarily joining a loose union. Other contradictions in his political beliefs included those on the role of organized religion, urbanization and communism. His view of Croatia's borders, be it within or without Yugoslavia, expanded far beyond the modern-day Croatian nation state and included most of contemporary
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina, sometimes known as Bosnia-Herzegovina and informally as Bosnia, is a country in Southeast Europe. Situated on the Balkans, Balkan Peninsula, it borders Serbia to the east, Montenegro to the southeast, and Croatia to th ...
as well. In Radić's view the local Bosniaks were not a separate
ethnic group
An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people with shared attributes, which they collectively believe to have, and long-term endogamy. Ethnicities share attributes like language, culture, common sets of ancestry, traditions, society, re ...
and were in truth an extension of the Croat nation, which had 'de-balkanized' them. Radić used the term 'Balkans' in a derogatory fashion, as he believed that Croatia was not a part of the Balkans. This Croatian view on Bosnia's status, which went back to thinkers like
Ljudevit Gaj
Ljudevit Gaj (; born Ludwig Gay; ; 8 August 1809 – 20 April 1872) was a Croatian linguist, politician, journalist and writer. He was one of the central figures of the pan-Slavist Illyrian movement.
Biography
Origin
He was born in Krapina ( ...
, was juxtaposed by Serbian nationalist beliefs going back to
Vuk Karadžić
Vuk Stefanović Karadžić ( sr-Cyrl, Вук Стефановић Караџић, ; 6 November 1787 (26 October OS)7 February 1864) was a Serbian philologist, anthropologist and linguist. He was one of the most important reformers of the moder ...
, which included the Bosniaks as a natural part of the Serbian nation. As such, any sort of territorial settlement between Serbs and Croats would likely happen without representation of the Bosniaks and be to their detriment.
The Royal Dictatorship of the 1930s

After the proclamation of the
6 January Dictatorship
The 6 January Dictatorship ( sr-Cyrl-Latn, Шестојануарска диктатура, Šestojanuarska diktatura; ; ) was a royal dictatorship established in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Kingdom of Yugoslavia after 1929) by ...
by
Alexander I Alexander I may refer to:
* Alexander I of Macedon, king of Macedon from 495 to 454 BC
* Alexander I of Epirus (370–331 BC), king of Epirus
* Alexander I Theopator Euergetes, surnamed Balas, ruler of the Seleucid Empire 150-145 BC
* Pope Alex ...
, the Vidovdan Constitution was overturned. Half a year later, it was replaced with the
1931 Yugoslav Constitution (also known as ''September Constitution''), and the country officially became the ''Kingdom of Yugoslavia''. In the September Constitution, the 33 administrative districts of the Vidovdan Constitution were replaced with nine ''banovinas.'' Each of these were named after a river, and in the case of the
Littoral Banovina
The Littoral Banovina or Littoral Banate (; / ''Primorska banovina''), was a province ( banovina) of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia between 1929 and 1939. This province consisted of much of the Croatian region of Dalmatia and parts of present-day Bos ...
, after the coastline. They were outwardly designed to avoid connotations of historical, ethnic, regional or religious allegiance, but were in effect a continuation of the Serbian dominance within Yugoslavia: Serbs were the majority in six out of nine of the banovinas,
Slovenes
The Slovenes, also known as Slovenians ( ), are a South Slavs, South Slavic ethnic group native to Slovenia and adjacent regions in Italy, Austria and Hungary. Slovenes share a common ancestry, Slovenian culture, culture, and History of Slove ...
the majority in
Drava
The Drava or Drave (, ; ; ; ; ), historically known as the Dravis or Dravus, is a river in southern Central Europe. , Croatians in
Sava
The Sava, is a river in Central Europe, Central and Southeast Europe, a right-bank and the longest tributary of the Danube. From its source in Slovenia it flows through Croatia and along its border with Bosnia and Herzegovina, and finally reac ...
and Littoral. By comparison, the
Kosovo Albanians
The Albanians of Kosovo (, ), also commonly called Kosovo Albanians, Kosovan Albanians or Kosovars (), constitute the largest ethnic group in Kosovo.
Kosovo Albanians belong to the Albanians, ethnic Albanian sub-group of Ghegs, who inhabit the ...
and
Macedonians were minorities under Serbian majorities in
Zeta
Zeta (, ; uppercase Ζ, lowercase ζ; , , classical or ''zē̂ta''; ''zíta'') is the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 7. It was derived from the Phoenician alphabet, Phoenician letter zay ...
and
Vardar
The Vardar (; , , ) or Axios (, ) is the longest river in North Macedonia and a major river in Greece, where it reaches the Aegean Sea at Thessaloniki. It is long, out of which are in Greece, and drains an area of around . The maximum depth of ...
, and the
Bosniaks
The Bosniaks (, Cyrillic script, Cyrillic: Бошњаци, ; , ) are a South Slavs, South Slavic ethnic group native to the Southeast European historical region of Bosnia (region), Bosnia, today part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and who sha ...
(often just called ''Muslims'' at the time) were split between four banovinas (
Vrbas,
Zeta
Zeta (, ; uppercase Ζ, lowercase ζ; , , classical or ''zē̂ta''; ''zíta'') is the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 7. It was derived from the Phoenician alphabet, Phoenician letter zay ...
,
Drina
The Drina ( sr-Cyrl, Дрина, ) is a long river in the Balkans, which forms a large portion of the border between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia. It is the longest tributary of the Sava River and the longest karst river in the Dinaric Al ...
, Littoral), making a majority in none of them.
In the decade following the establishment of the royal dictatorship, half a dozen prime ministers (
Živković
Živković (sometimes transliterated Zivkovic, sr-Cyrl, Живковић, ) is a Croatian and Serbian surname derived from a masculine given name Živko.
It is the most common surname in the Šibenik-Knin County in Croatia, and among the most fre ...
1929–1932,
Marinković
Marinković ( sr-Cyrl, Маринковић) is a Serbo-Croatian surname, a patronymic derived from the given name ''Marinko''. It may refer to:
*Bojana Marinković (born 1996), Serbian tennis player
* Branko Marinkovic, Bolivian politician and bu ...
1932,
Srškić 1932–1934,
Uzunović 1934,
Jevtić 1934–1935,
Stojadinović 1935–1939) rose and fell, first at the behest of King Alexander I, and then, after the king's assassination in 1934, at the wishes of
Prince Paul, who served as regent for the underage
King Peter II. Of these prime ministers,
Milan Stojadinović
Milan Stojadinović ( sr-Cyrl, Милан Стојадиновић; 4 August 1888 – 26 October 1961) was a Serbs, Serbian and Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Yugoslav politician and economist who was the Prime Minister of Yugoslavia from 1935 to 1939. ...
had the longest tenure between 1935 and 1939, primarily because of the global economic recovery from the
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...
. However, he was ideologically a strong centralist and opposed to major concessions to the minority movements, particularly when it came to the Croatian Question. He also drew the personal ire of Prince Paul, a western-minded anglophile, by adopting imagery and rhetoric from
Italian Fascism
Italian fascism (), also called classical fascism and Fascism, is the original fascist ideology, which Giovanni Gentile and Benito Mussolini developed in Italy. The ideology of Italian fascism is associated with a series of political parties le ...
. Stojadinović's government fell in early February 1939, when he lost the faith of his cabinet.
The regent replaced him with
Dragiša Cvetković
Dragiša Cvetković ( sr-cyr, Драгиша Цветковић; 15 January 1893 – 18 February 1969) was a Yugoslav politician active in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. He served as the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia from 1939 to 1941 ...
on 5 February. Cvetković would remain prime minister until the
Yugoslav coup d'état
The Yugoslav coup d'état took place on 27 March 1941 in Belgrade, Kingdom of Yugoslavia, when the regency led by Prince Paul of Yugoslavia was overthrown and King Peter II fully assumed monarchical powers. The coup was planned and conducte ...
in March 1941, immediately preceding the German
Invasion of Yugoslavia
The invasion of Yugoslavia, also known as the April War or Operation 25, was a Nazi Germany, German-led attack on the Kingdom of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers which began on 6 April 1941 during World War II. The order for the invasion was put fo ...
. Cvetković was not particularly popular in his native Serbia, neither with government supporters nor with the opposition. As such, he sought to strike a deal with
Vladko Maček
Vladimir Maček (20 June 1879 – 15 May 1964) was a politician in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. As a leader of the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS) following the 1928 assassination of Stjepan Radić, Maček had been a leading Croatian political figure ...
, who had become the leader of the Croatian regionalist movement following Radić's death.
The Role of the Croats in Government, 1918–1939
Stjepan Radić had initially boycotted the Yugoslav Assembly with his HRSS in the early 1920s and had been openly hostile to the institution of the Yugoslav monarchy and the very membership of Croatia within the Yugoslav state. He engaged in openly hostile rhetoric towards the Serbian elite, and had to go abroad in July 1923 after an arrest warrant because of a speech insulting to
Queen Maria. Radić had even enlisted his party in the
Krestintern
The Peasant International (), known most commonly by its Russian abbreviation Krestintern (Крестинтерн), was an international peasants' organization formed by the Communist International (Comintern) in October 1923. The organization a ...
in the
Soviet Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
in 1924, although King Alexander had openly supported the
Russian Whites against the Bolsheviks in the
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War () was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the 1917 overthrowing of the Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. I ...
. Radić's open flirt with communism, which was deeply despised in the Serbian political establishment, even partially brought about the downfall of the
Davidović administration, the first one which had not been led by the Radical Party. However, in the mid-1920s, he turned his ideology in prison, accepted both the monarchy and the constitution and started to work with his renamed Croatian Peasant Party (HSS, the 'Republican' part had been dropped from the name) from within the system. A brief alliance between Radić's HSS and Pašić's Radical Party, formed on 18 July 1925, led nowhere due to mutual and public contempt, and the HSS broke ranks with the Radicals in early April 1926.
After Radić's death in 1928, the party came under the leadership of
Vladko Maček
Vladimir Maček (20 June 1879 – 15 May 1964) was a politician in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. As a leader of the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS) following the 1928 assassination of Stjepan Radić, Maček had been a leading Croatian political figure ...
on 13 August 1928, who turned it further in favor of bourgeois political circles and intellectualism, away from the rural peasant agrarianism originally envisioned by Radić. He had been offered the possibility of leading the Yugoslav government as prime minister in July 1932, after the King had dismissed
Petar Živković
Petar Živković ( sr-cyr, Петар Живковић; 1 January 1879 – 3 February 1947) was a Serbian military officer and political figure in Yugoslavia. He was Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia from 7 January 1929 until 4 Ap ...
and
Vojislav Marinković in short succession, but Maček declined. During the Royal Dictatorship, he formed potent political alliances in the opposition. First, the HSS joined with the Democratic Party to form a ''Democratic Peasant Union'', then allied with other forces like the
Slovene People's Party and
Yugoslav Muslim Organization to become a complete 'United Opposition'. These alliances managed to score good electoral results in spite of the openly biased political system that the September Constitution of 1931 had established. The United Opposition list managed to secure 45% of the vote in December 1938, further undermining the authority of Prime Minister Stojadinović. Stojadinović was then replaced with Cvetković in February 1939.
Agreement
Negotiations
Cvetković had been appointed prime minister because of the necessity that Regent Paul saw in immediately appeasing with the Croatian regionalists. Through intermediaries in the HSS, Cvetković met Maček in
Zagreb
Zagreb ( ) is the capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Croatia#List of cities and towns, largest city of Croatia. It is in the Northern Croatia, north of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the ...
for preliminary talks.
Cvetković and Maček could profit off each other: Cvetković could gain some much need legitimacy with the Croat people and thus the United Opposition,
whereas Maček could fulfill his regionalist agenda to increase Croatian autonomy. Negotiations lasted from April to August 1939, and produced the Sporazum.
The agreement was finalized on 20 August 1939, and ratified on the 26th.
Terms

The terms of the agreement were as follows:
* Article I
** A new government for the Banovina of Croatia will be formed.
* Article II
** The Sava and Littoral banovinas will become the Banovina of Croatia.
** Additionally, the majority Croatian parts of the Dubrovnik, Sid, Ilok, Brcko, Gradacac, Travnik and Fojnica regions will be added to those two banovinas.
** Parts of the aforementioned regions without Croatian majorities will be separated and will not be annexed by the Banovina of Croatia.
* Article III
** Serbs, Croats and Slovenes are to be equal before the law in the new Banovina as well as in the country at large. The three ethnic groups are guaranteed equal access to positions in public service in the country.
** Religious equality is guaranteed. The constitution of the new Banovina will guarantee equal basic civil and political rights.
* Article IV
** The internal tasks of agriculture, trade and industry, forest and mines, buildings, social policy, public education, justice and internal administration will be transferred to the jurisdiction of the Banovina of Croatia. The Banovina will cooperate with the military leadership when it comes to mining concessions that are of interest to the national defense.
** All other affairs, as well as 'matters of particular importance for the state', such as national security, suppression of destructive propaganda, police intelligence, protection of public order, and others, will remain with the federal government.
** "Necessary financial autonomy" will be provided to Croatia, but the military leadership will be provided with the necessary influence in production and logistics within Croatia to assure national defense.
* Article V
** Joint legislative power by King and Parliament within the jurisdiction of the Banovina.
** Creation of a separate parliament for the Banovina, freely elected by a universal, equal, direct and secret ballot. Minority representation will be guaranteed.
** The King shall exercise his administrative powers within the Banovina through a Ban.
** The Ban, named and dismissed by the King, is accountable to the King and the parliament.
** Written acts of royal authority must be counter-signed by the Ban if they are to apply within the Banovina of Croatia.
** Establishment of a Constitutional Court for the settlement of disputes between the federal government and the Banovina.
* Article VI
** The territorial extent and jurisdictional rights of the Banovina will be guaranteed by a special constitutional provision. This provision cannot be changed without the Banovina's consent.
* Article VII
** The federal government agrees to make any new laws that might be necessary to implement the agreement.
Furthermore, although not formalized in the agreement, Maček joined the cabinet as Vice Premier. Four further cabinet positions were given to Maček's colleagues, forming the ''Government of National Agreement''.
The first and only Ban was
Ivan Šubašić
Ivan Šubašić (7 May 1892 – 22 March 1955) was a Croat politician, best known as the last Ban of Croatia and Prime Minister of the royalist Yugoslav Government in exile during the Second World War.
Early life
Ivan Šubašić was born in ...
, a veteran of the First World War who was selected by the regent as a ''Serbs' Croat'' in the hopes of appeasing the Serbian public opinion about the deal with the Croatians, although the gesture had little effect on the negative Serbian reaction to the agreement.
Outcome
For the HSS part of the Peasant-Democrat Coalition, the agreement meant that, just like the HRSS had done with the
Vidovdan Constitution
The Vidovdan Constitution was the first constitution of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. It was approved by the Constitutional Assembly on 28 June 1921 despite the opposition boycotting the vote. The Constitution is named after the feast ...
, the party now effectively operated from within the September Constitution and had started cooperating with the constitutional system it had previously rejected. However, Maček had come as close as he could to complete Croatian autonomy without outright independence: Croatia now had a ban between itself and the king, and it had its own parliament in Zagreb, the
Sabor
The Croatian Parliament () or the Sabor is the unicameral legislature of Croatia. Under the terms of the Croatian Constitution, the Sabor represents the people and is vested with legislative power. The Sabor is composed of 151 members elected ...
, to look after its own affairs. Furthermore, he had scored five government posts for himself and his colleagues.
However, the agreement's stipulations were provisional. The planned revisions did however never happen, as the Second World War brought about the end of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
The new Banovina of Croatia comprised about a third of the entire country's territory. The Croats were now the only ethnic group within Yugoslavia with their own dedicated political entity within the Kingdom of Yugoslavia,
but the population also contained 20% Serbs and 4% Bosniaks.
Most of the stipulations of the treaty remained unfulfilled, as the outbreak of Second World War in the very week of the agreement's ratification and the eventual involvement of Yugoslavia after the German Invasion of April 1941 prevented its political realization.
Reaction
Croatia
The Croatian reaction within Yugoslavia was, at least initially, generally positive, as the Croats, at last, had their own autonomous government and an ethnically defined territorial entity to call their own. However, both the fascist
Ustasha and the Croatian communists were unhappy that the settlement had stayed short of outright independence.
The positive opinion was further helped by the fact that the agreement was given legitimacy by its sponsors, especially Maček, who was popular as a defender of Croatian national interests. The positive opinion towards the agreement among Croats did however turn increasingly sour as the agreement's implementation stalled and economic hardship arose in relationship with the onset of the Second World War.
Serbia
The Serbian reaction was one of outrage: 800,000 ethnic Serbs, about 20% of the Banovina's population, were now subjects of a Croatian parliament, and the Croat Maček's accession to the office of vice premier was perceived as even more of an insult.
Furthermore, the fact of the very existence of a Croatian banovina led to political calls for just the same arrangement for Serbia.
Slobodan Jovanović of the
Serbian Cultural Club put forth a proposal that would have included Bosnia, Montenegro and Macedonia into a ''banovina of Serb countries''. This proposal reached planning stages in mid-1940, but was never realized due to the increasing pressure placed on the country by the Second World War.
Both the Orthodox clergy and the officer class of the Yugoslav armed forces were outspoken in their opposition to the agreement.
Even in liberal Serbian circles, where the 1931 Constitution was unpopular, the agreement was rejected. But among Serbian liberals, the main outrage did not lay with a Serbian government that betrayed the Serbs, but rather with the Croatian side of the deal, as the Croatians had through their cooperation with the authoritarian government legitimized both the authoritarian system in general and the 1931 Constitution in particular.
Both liberals and conservatives in Serbia did, however, lay at least some of the blame at the feet of Prime Minister Cvetković, who was soon even less popular in Serbia than his authoritarian predecessor Stojadinović had been. In general, the agreement put a renewed strain on Serb-Croat relations, which had overall improved during the united opposition of Croat and Serb liberals against the central government's authority.
The major effect of the Banovina of Croatia's creation on the political views of most Serb policy makers was the end of the ideology of centralism (also called unitarism). By the end of the 1930s, most Serbian politicians favored a federal system and wished to emulate the Croatian autonomy rights for the Serbs.
Rest of Yugoslavia
The Bosniak Muslims were particularly embittered, as they previously already had to deal with the division between four different banovinas, in all of which they were minorities. Now, two of these banovinas were merged into a national unit, which the Bosniaks had been denied,
along with the very recognition as a national subculture in Yugoslavia, which was from its founding primarily designed around Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Not only did parts of the Bosniak population (4% of the Banovina of Croatia's overall population) now live under Croatian rule, but the drafts for a Serb banovina by the likes of Jovanović and the Serbian Cultural Club threatened to undermine the cultural and political autonomy of the remaining Bosniaks as well.
Only one member of the new Cvetković-Maček cabinet was a member of the Yugoslav Muslim Organization, further increasing the impression that the Croatians had struck a deal with the Serbians to partition Bosnia to the detriment of the Bosniaks.
For the Slovenes, the matter was less one of a possible imminent national destruction like in the case of Bosnia, but more one of equality between the three peoples.
The Slovenes had usually stood side by side with the Croats in a joint skepticism of central Serb authority, but now the Croats evidently had struck a deal with the Serbs that awarded them special treatment, including a separate national parliament that Slovenia did not have. Although the Drava banovina was somewhat close to an exclusively Slovene district, it had none of the special autonomies granted to the Banovina of Croatia. While there were calls for a ''Banovina of Slovenia'', the threat posed by neighboring Italy and Germany and the rapidly expanding Second World War soon took precedence.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cvetkovic-Macek Agreement
1939 in Yugoslavia
1939 in Croatia
August 1939 in Europe
1939 in politics
1939 in Serbia
1939 in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Politics of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Political history of Croatia
Political history of Serbia
Political history of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina–Croatia relations
Bosnia and Herzegovina–Serbia relations
Croatia–Serbia relations
Yugoslav Croatia
Yugoslav Serbia
Yugoslav Bosnia and Herzegovina
Partition (politics)